Many industrial applications require materials that possess a combination of high strength, low weight and damage resistance. In order to meet these needs, both metals and metal-composite laminate materials are utilized.
One application for materials possessing high strength, low weight and damage resistance are for the construction of parts for motor and human powered vehicles in order to provide satisfactory structural integrity and damage resistance, while increasing the range of the vehicle for a given amount of fuel or power. Such vehicles include automobiles, trucks, planes, trains, bicycles, motorcycles, and spacecraft. Other applications include golf clubs (both the shaft and the head), tubular structures such as softball bats, skis, and surf and snow boards.
In order to meet the needs of the aerospace industry, for example, a number of metal-composite laminate materials have been developed to replace the metals traditionally used in the construction of aircraft primary structures. The problems with these composite materials, however, include a mismatch between the strength to modulus of elasticity ratio of the different layers. This mismatch causes various layers of the composite to fail under a specific amount of stress before other layers of the composite, thereby underutilizing the strength on the non-failing layers. Thus, currently used low weight metal-composite laminate materials do not use the maximum strength of various layers for a given strain of the metal-composite laminate material.
Hence, there is a need for high strength, lightweight materials for use in industrial applications, such as for parts of motor and human powered vehicles, among other uses. Further, there is a need for lightweight, metal-composite laminate materials which utilize the strength of all layers of the material to the fullest extent per given strain of the metal-composite laminate material.